


beast of burden

by sidnihoudini



Category: Smosh
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 10:55:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3567071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anthony’s working on a red rice and chilli lime bowl, and Ian’s eating something with chili verde and lots of extra jalapenos.  Anthony can kind of see Ian’s eyes already watering from here.  His burrito bowl is actually pretty good - it’s definitely in his top three - but he has to admit, the restaurant’s atmosphere is kind of getting to him.  He hadn’t realized this was such a romantic joint until they’d already been paraded through and seated.</p><p>It’s just - it’s just too intimate - the kind of place that you took someone when you wanted your knees to bump up against theirs underneath the table.</p><p>The ambiance is a little weird, a little strange, a little cough syrup daydream-ish.  The decor is heavy handed, like Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet, if Juliet had been Mexican and her fish tank scene with Leonardo DiCaprio had taken place in a cantina.  He and Ian’s table is off in a corner where the wallpaper is bright red and peeling over old, exposed brick.  Seeing Ian sitting in front of it makes his eyes look about ten shades more blue.</p><p>It’s weird, the shit you notice about someone when you’re desperately trying not to pay attention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	beast of burden

_now i'm afraid of open water  
but i often bathe in sin._

~

Their relationship has been more complicated than not lately, and nights like these are the perfect example of the recent shift in their dynamic.

It’s dark outside; not pitch black, but the deep plum color that often fell over California just before the stars. They’re driving down the Santa Ana Freeway, en route to a taco place that someone recommended on Twitter. Anthony is in the passenger seat with his phone open in one hand, and Ian is in the driver’s seat, one hand on the wheel, and the other on the gear shift.

Tonight is one of those nights that shouldn’t be unlike any other. A few years ago, they would have done the same pilgrimage and then eaten their burritos over the editing suite of Ian’s PC. Business as usual.

But tonight - _now_ \- it’s all fucked up. Tonight absolutely nothing will change between them, but Anthony will continue to watch Ian’s hand as it rests on the gear shift, his fingers wrapped around the leather knob, knee moving up and down incrementally as his foot shifts between the break and the accelerator. He’s relaxed, fluid. The whole trip Anthony will watch Ian’s hand as it moves, and consider all kinds of fucked up shit that he has no right to be thinking about at all.

“Wait, what exit are we supposed to be taking again?” Ian asks. A strip of yellow light slides over his face as they drive beneath a lit underpass. “I forgot what it was already.”

Anthony looks away from Ian’s profile, and trains his gaze out on the open road before them. The white painted lane divider disappears below the bottom edge of the windshield repetitiously; it makes Anthony feel more tired than he knows he really is.

“North-110, dude. We’re going to Pasadena,” Anthony replies, using a funny Spanish voice for ‘Pasadena’ as he looks back down at his phone, and opens Google Maps again. Sure enough there they are, a little blue ball travelling the curved yellow line that the highway represents on the map. One little unit. Anthony snorts when he notices that they have an estimated twenty minutes left in their journey, and adds, “Pasadena… for fucking burritos.”

As they approach their exit, Ian switches from the left hand lane into the right, and makes a ‘whatever’ noise.

“We’ve gone further for food before,” He shrugs, reaching down to change gears. Anthony pulls the seat belt away from where it’s itching at the side of his neck, and concentrates on watching the road - not Ian’s fingers. “Remember that time we drove to Bodega Bay for seafood? It took uh, seven hours each way. And anyways, this place is supposed to have really good burritos.”

Anthony does laugh at the memory of their trip to Bodega Bay. It had been a few years back, now, even though “a few years” hardly felt like it was that far away sometimes.

They’d left home at one in the afternoon - back when they both still lived in Sacramento - and hadn’t made it back until five the next morning. If he recalls the memory correctly, they’d briefly entertained the idea of springing for a motel room on the Shoreline Highway, but neither of them had a credit card. Anthony still remembers how red Ian’s eyes had been in the fluorescent light of the gas station when they’d stopped for Red Bull and Twizzlers.

“Bodega Bay, fuuuuuck,” Anthony sighs, still smiling a little as they take the exit. “I discovered I didn’t like crab.”

That makes Ian laugh, the familiar ha-ha-ha-ha noise bringing a genuine grin to Anthony’s face. Ian glances over and adds, “You definitely hated that crab. I think that lady was super mad you threw up in her parking lot.”

“I hated it,” Anthony reiterates, still smiling. He catches his own reflecting in the car window as they pass by another light, and it’s strange. The whole thing, this thing that they do. This cycle that is new, and almost warped like a funhouse mirror. He’s been trying to sum up the feelings he’s been kicking around in the sand since last winter, and he still hasn’t been able to find the right words. Tonight, he tries. “Growing up is the weirdest thing. It’s so fucked up. Like… I thought I had it all figured out.”

This is about as close as he’s come to conveying the feeling, Anthony decides, as he turns slightly to look at Ian for a response.

“I think I’m having a mid-midlife crisis,” Anthony sighs impatiently, when Ian doesn’t immediately respond. Instead, Ian is somber looking, eyes flashing bright and blue whenever they pass by a streetlight or oncoming car. “Something is different.”

A few more minutes pass between them, and then they roll to a stop at the first traffic light Anthony has seen since they left Los Angeles.

“That’s the nature of the beast, man,” Ian finally says, quietly. He doesn’t look over at Anthony as he says it. Instead, he leans forward a little bit, gaze trained on the traffic light hanging in front of them, swaying slightly in the wind. He’s patient, waiting for the light to flip back to green. “Shit keeps changing, and you just got to try and keep up.”

Frowning again, Anthony shakes his head and looks back down at his now dimmed phone screen. The words are kind of poetic in their simplicity.

“That’s depressing as fuck,” Is what he actually says out loud.

The light does turn back to green, though, and a new song starts to play on the radio.

*

For once they actually sit down and eat in the restaurant, because when they’re not shooting they at least attempt to be fully functioning members of society.

Anthony’s working on a red rice and chilli lime bowl, and Ian’s eating something with chili verde and lots of extra jalapenos. Anthony can kind of see Ian’s eyes already watering from here. His burrito bowl is actually pretty good - it’s definitely in his top three - but he has to admit, the restaurant’s atmosphere is kind of getting to him. He hadn’t realized this was such a romantic joint until they’d already been paraded through and seated.

It’s just - it’s just too intimate - the kind of place that you took someone when you wanted your knees to bump up against theirs underneath the table.

The ambiance is a little weird, a little strange, a little cough syrup daydream-ish. The decor is heavy handed, like Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet, if Juliet had been Mexican and her fish tank scene with Leonardo DiCaprio had taken place in a cantina. He and Ian’s table is off in a corner where the wallpaper is bright red and peeling over old, exposed brick. Seeing Ian sitting in front of it makes his eyes look about ten shades more blue.

It’s weird, the shit you notice about someone when you’re desperately trying not to pay attention.

“Is yours super spicy?” Ian asks, sounding a little alarmed as he drops his fork and reaches for his beer instead. He drains the bottle to the bottom of its neck in about three gulps, and makes a pained face as he steals one of Anthony’s tortilla chips. “Mine is spicy.”

Grinning, Anthony shakes his head and snaps another tortilla chip between his teeth. He’s only eaten about a quarter of his rice bowl so far, mostly because the chips and salsa are strangely satisfying by themselves. He also has to get his fill of them before Ian finishes his burrito off and starts sniffing around for more food.

“Next time you should ask for mild,” Anthony smiles serenely. It lasts for about a second before he breaks out into loud laughter when Ian kicks him - hard - underneath the table. The abrupt movement shakes everything on the table between them, their beer bottles clinking against the salsa bowl and hot sauce bottles. Still cackling, Anthony tries to steady everything as he whines, “Ow, domestic violence.”

Ian grimaces at him again, but this time all that Anthony offers in retaliation is a slow, wide grin.

*

Anthony never thought that it was possible for someone’s personal life to fall apart with such a resounding thud.

For a while he’d been convinced he’d managed to get his shit together. Everything looked great on paper: money in the bank, a fulfilling creative outlet shared 50/50 with his best friend, a great girl, a brand new loft apartment… when you added the list up, it used to scream “adult!”

When he looks back on it now, he isn’t even sure where everything started to unravel. One day he was standing in his kitchen watching Kalel make a romantic dinner for the two of them, the late summer Los Angeles sun setting through the windows, and a few months later he was being broken up with via email. Mother - fucking - email. 

Hands left totally empty, his life fallen between the cracks of his fingers in that one moment where he had been stupid enough to looked away.

She had been kind to him, honest. That had been where everything with Ian had started: Kalel and her stupid fucking theories.

 _I can’t base my life around someone who isn’t there anymore, Anthony._ That’s what she’d said to him. He knew it by memory he had read it so many times, looking for some kind of hidden meaning between the lines. He’d tried to be zen about it, but it had pissed him right the fuck off - stupid fucking bitch, like she had any idea what she was talking about, what she was _saying_ \- but in the months since, it had all begun to fall into place.

Anthony ended up sending her a few heavy handed apology texts by the time the end of January rolled around. _New year, new me_ , he’d joked.

The damage had been done the moment Anthony finished reading that email the first time. The seed planted, small but there, somewhere, in the very back of his brain. The very existence of that seed was Kalel’s fault, the way she had implied that Ian broke up with his own girlfriend earlier in the year because he was harboring some kind of secret romantic feelings for Anthony that Melanie would have never lived up to. _Why would they stay in a futureless relationship, Anthony? She deserves better than that. I deserve better than that._

It stung at the time, but had surreptitiously cut deep in the months since. Anthony hadn’t even realized he’d had an open wound there to salt.

He’d made the entire situation way worse, very quickly. The night Kalel broke up with him he’d Ubered to a friends house - not Ian’s, thank you - with the intent of getting righteously wasted. The two of them had split a six pack on the patio before storming down to the nearest beach. In the sand, below the sky, they’d shared a bottle of whisky. 

Standing in the ocean with the water lapping at their ankles as they screamed obscenities into the stars, Anthony had felt invincible for the first time in a long time. That’s why it had seemed like a good idea to whip his dick out once he was back at his buddy’s place, staggeringly drunk in the bathroom. Of course Anthony’s disjointed plan seemed more destined to succeed when he had been wasted and glazedly staring back at his own reflection in the lyme covered mirror.

The original plan had been to send two pictures to Kalel: one of his dick, and then another of his middle finger. _I made these for you,_ he’d write.

But in the end, of course he’d accidentally sent Ian the photo of his cock. Luckily the middle finger _had_ made its way to Anthony’s originally intended recipient, though he thought it lost a bit of steam without his dick there to back it up.

Ian never said anything about it, but they both knew it had happened. The read receipt time stamped at 1:34 AM was proof.

The next morning, Anthony gave him the cliff’s notes version of his drunken escapade the night before. Ian had laughed and commiserated and groaned as Anthony made his way through his version of the night’s events. Anthony had tried to work himself up to talking about the pictures - it had been on the tip of his tongue three times - but in the end, he’d pussied out. Their friendship didn’t exactly suffer for it, it just became another one of their “don’t ask, don’t tell” policies. They already had enough of those to write a rule book, anyways.

That was when he realized Kalel had been right about the whole thing. It was a slow burst of realization - that moment where you catch your finger in the drawer but you don’t feel pain. First New Years Eve passed, and then Valentine’s Day, and somewhere in-between it just slid into the rest of his thoughts, between _I need a coffee_ and _a new episode of CSI is on tonight. I definitely love him._

He and Ian’s entire relationship was built on a series of checks and balances that they hadn’t even realized they’d built over the years. It was a complicated system that kept them both at arm’s length from one another, while still allowing them to orbit around one another at close range.

It was complicated. It was the reason why Anthony never had the balls to ask Ian why he and Melanie had separated. He knew the answer would hit way too close to home, and once it was out there - floating around in space - there was absolutely no going back.

*

A few days later, Anthony is sitting at the kitchen table in their production office trying desperately to finish a script.

He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Kalel this week. Actually, to be completely honest his head has been all over the fucking place this week. Since that night he and Ian went to Pasadena for burritos his head has been all fucked up, and it’s gotten to the point where it’s starting to impact his work.

After tapping his fingers against the tabletop for a few moments, he finally gives in and reaches for his phone.

_was ian really the reason why?_

He sends the text off before he has a chance to over think it. Bloop, he thinks, there it goes. Off into the abyss. His stomach gets all weird and nervous as he stares at the phone screen: he knows Kalel, and he knows that she’ll text him back sooner than Google would hit him with a relevant search result. 

Sure enough, a second after his text has gone through he sees the little “...” indicator pop up at the bottom of their conversation window.

 _YES_ , is all it says. No smiley face, no emoticons - nothing. He frowns at the screen, and tosses the phone back down onto the kitchen table.

Ugh, he thinks to himself, tapping his fingers against his laptop touchpad to wake the screen up. Stupid girls, always making you read between the lines.

He lasts for another fifteen minutes before he reaches for his phone again, still not a word further in his script. Kalel hasn’t given him the pleasure of elaborating at all, but a few other people have messaged him in the meantime - nothing of substance, including Mari’s lone eggplant emoticon. He scrolls past everyone else, down to where Ian is his fourth most recent conversation. 9:45 this morning, when Ian had sent him a photo of Daisy wearing a rasta hat.

 _let’s do something tonight,_ is all that Anthony says.

A few minutes later, Ian replies.

 _Sure._ One word has never made Anthony’s stomach drop to the floor so fast.

*

He isn’t exactly sure why it happens, but it takes him forever to decide what to wear that night.

His pants fit too tight, his shirt is - also too tight, actually - and then there’s his weird hair and the way that his jacket sticks out in an awkward way. All of a sudden everything he’s ever owned is unsuitable, leaving him to finally settle on a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Done. Simple. Right? This is what he would wear if he wasn’t having a mid-midlife crisis that seems to be heavily influenced by Ian’s unwavering presence in his life.

“This is fine,” He tells his reflection. He feels like that wall-eyed dog, sitting on the couch with a tie and hat as the entire room goes up in flames.

 _This is fine,_ he repeats.

*

Ian shows up just after the sun goes down. He stands outside Anthony’s front door wearing a button down shirt, and carrying a four pack of Red Bull in one hand like a bouquet of roses. 

“Oh god, my hero,” Anthony says, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he can stop himself. Now that he’s aware of the space they keep between one another, he can’t help but feel a little bit frazzled when he begins to toe the line.

It’s made of chalk and salt, at this point. It’s hardly permanent, and runs the risk of washing away the moment it begins to rain.

“So what are we celebrating?” Ian asks at one point, as they move into the kitchen and Anthony unceremoniously pushes a shot of tequila in his direction.

Anthony shrugs, reaches for a slice of lime, and sucks the line of salt off of the softest part of his hand, the curve that connects his thumb to pointer finger.

“Everything,” He says, looking at Ian’s face before he pulses a smile and throws the tequila back.

Ian stares at him for a moment, mouth open, expression guarded, before Anthony sees the shutters flip and he shrugs, throwing back his shot as well.

It’s all changing. Anthony can already feel it beginning in the tips of his fingers. It’s electric, like static, popping and snapping when you least expect a reaction.

Anthony makes a noise as the tequila burns its way down his throat, and reaches for the bottle one last time.

*

It’s not like Anthony has ever actually considered the logistics of having sex with Ian.

He thinks that would be the weirdest part of everything, if they somehow ended up in some kind of consensual relationship with one another: the fucking.

Would either of them even know what to do? Anthony had never been with another dude before - Kalel had been his first real relationship with anyone at all - but he couldn’t be totally sure about Ian. Having sex with some anonymous fuckboy on the side was the kind of thing that you didn’t tell anybody, including your closest friends.

Like… who would even fuck who? How did you decide that? Ian might be shorter, but Anthony felt like maybe he would… like taking it. Just imagining his own hips pressed against Ian’s body was enough to take him right to bone town, and it disgusted Anthony that the thought of dragging his tongue along the flattest, lowest part of Ian’s stomach didn’t disgust him at all. He fucking wanted it. Now that the tequila was flowing freely, he could totally admit it. He really, really wanted it. And he didn’t even want to stop at the normal stuff, either. He wanted all the freaky shit, too.

They share an Uber to their favorite bar. The whole way there Anthony can’t stop himself from looking at Ian’s hands, his mouth. Imagining what Ian’s fingers would feel like inside, what it would feel like to drag his tongue along Ian’s mouth. He’s half hard by the time they leave Anthony’s neighborhood limits; by the time they’re in the city proper, Anthony’s head is absolutely swimming with alcohol and pornographic thoughts.

Ian is this side of comfortably buzzed, too. Anthony can tell by the way he keeps bobbing his head along to the Britney song on the radio. Ian was secretly the biggest Britney fan of anyone Anthony knew; publicly, he admitted to infrequently listening to Beyonce’s last album.

“I’m going right from drunk to hungover,” Ian complains, leaning forward in his seat. He presses the palm of one hand against his forehead as the car lurches forward again, and Anthony laughs in sympathy as they finally pull up to the curb.

He watches Ian reach for the door handle, and promises, “I’ll buy you a drink as soon as we’re inside.”

Nodding, Ian swallows a few times - it’s either more alcohol at this point, or transitioning right into greasy food - and fixes his gaze on the bar just up the street. The pitfalls of growing older, Anthony thinks, as they both climb out of the car, first Ian and then him. Anthony bounces out onto the curb, and looks at the bar down the road as if it is salvation. 

The beginning and end of all life’s problems: alcohol.

“Let’s stop and get food first,” Ian says from behind him, shutting the car door. Anthony turns around, and follows where Ian is pointing to: a burger truck parked on the other side of the road. There are already a few drunk people standing around outside, swaying back and forth a little as they wait in front of the pick-up window with glassy eyes and sweaty foreheads. Midnight zombies. Ian adds, “I didn’t eat dinner, which is proving itself to be a really, really bad decision.”

Anthony laughs and nods, and follows Ian as he jaywalks across the street.

It’s not exactly a busy street; mostly foot traffic, taxis and Ubers as people come and go from this bar, and the restaurant up the block. Anthony watches as Ian goes up to the order window. He knows he’s standing there, hands in his pockets and a vacant, mooning smile on his face as he watches Ian simply exist, but he’s just tipsy enough not to care if he’s caught.

Ian’s still talking to the truck owner. He says something and then points over his shoulder, and Anthony belatedly realizes Ian’s turning around to talk to him.

“Do you want anything?” Ian asks, raising his eyebrows. Anthony startles, feeling like he’s been caught red-handed. At Ian’s question, he suddenly has flashbacks of sitting in Ian’s old car, balancing three bags of Taco Bell and two super-sized drinks while they pulled out of the restaurant parking lot and across four lanes of Sacramento traffic.

He blinks, a little bewildered at the sense memory suddenly overwhelming his tequila soaked brain, and shakes his head. Realistically, this food truck probably doesn’t have anything that doesn’t have at least a few strips of bacon on it, and he doesn’t want to be that guy. At his response, Ian shrugs and turns back to the window, saying something else to the truck owner before he pulls out some cash.

Wandering over to the pick-up window, Anthony spits against the sidewalk and comes to stand hip to hip with Ian.

“Can I ask you something?” Anthony asks, as Ian drunkenly watches his triple decker burger being made through the truck window. Ian’s totally into it, eyes glazed and mouth half open like they’re watching an episode of Unwrapped or something. For some reason the fact that Ian seems no different than he was a year ago makes Anthony even more nervous for the words that are on the tip of his tongue. He shoots a cautious sideways glance at Ian, and then grimaces a little before adding, “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

Ian shrugs and glances over at Anthony, even though the majority of his concentration is still directed at the food truck window. He says, “I’m an open book,” and then adds, “Oh my god, look at that. That is an insane amount of cheese.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty gross. Alright, well, I just wanted to know, uh,” Anthony stops, trailing off, before he laughs nervously and shakes his head, trying to clear the waves of terror suddenly soaking through his brain. This is so stupid. He’s so nervous to say this outloud, as though his words will somehow give him away. He digs his heels into the ground - stand and deliver - and bites out, “Why didn’t you and Mel work out?”

The question seems to break over Ian’s head like a bucket full of ice water. Anthony is surprised that he doesn’t hear the sound of a mirror shattering as Ian’s attention snaps away from the food truck entirely, and to Anthony’s face instead. His eyes are wide, expression spooked; Anthony recognizes that expression. It’s almost like he’s wondering if Anthony has found him out.

“I don’t know - it just wasn’t going to work out,” Ian says, recovering. He shrugs as he drags his gaze back to the food truck window, but that tremor of nervousness is still controlling the movement of his lips, his tongue, his eyes. Anthony watches him curiously, as Ian shakes his head and adds, “We both knew it, and I didn’t want to waste anymore of her time than I already had. She wants to get married.”

Anthony knows that he’s found the bruise, swollen and purple and secret, but he can’t help but poke at it just a little bit more.

“Did she want to marry you?” Anthony asks, his voice soft. Sober Anthony would never push this button.

They had seemed so happy together - it had been a genuine shock when they’d broken up, even though Kalel hadn’t seemed that surprised. She’d been hanging upside down off the side of Anthony’s bed when he’d read Ian’s text message to her - she’d actually laughed, at first. Anthony just remembers watching her bare toes flex against his duvet cover, and not having the slightest idea of how he should reply to Ian’s text message.

Ian is watching the food truck guy wrap his burger as Anthony’s question hangs in the air. Without saying anything or looking away from the burger, he nods twice.

“Sorry,” Anthony apologizes, although _sorry not sorry_ is also running through his head on repeat. He lowers his voice a bit as another couple approaches the pickup window, and stands a few feet behind them. He adds, “I get it, though. It’s - it can be complicated.”

The food truck guy hands Ian his food tray through the window - it’s a red plastic thing weighed down by a gargantuan burger wrapped in silver foil on one side, and a matching red plastic basket on the other - and tells them both to have a good night.

“You too,” Ian nods, immediately picking up the red basket and handing it over to Anthony. Anthony accepts it as it bumps against his chest, and looks down to see the basket filled with plain tortilla chips on one side, and salsa on the other. “Anyway, so that’s it. Relationship ground zero.”

Anthony has now completely forgotten about Melanie’s existence. He holds the basket awkwardly, and asks, “What’s this?”

“They’re freshly made and vegan. The guy said they were really good,” Ian shrugs, pouring his attention into balancing his burger on the tray rather than looking at Anthony at all as they walk over towards the seating area. He drops the tray on the first empty table, and adds, “I figured the bar probably wouldn’t have anything that you could eat.”

It’s embarrassing, the way that Anthony feels when he looks at this basket of chips and salsa. It’s an overwhelming feeling that he can’t describe, but it starts behind his ears and it goes all the way down to his knees. The feeling is distinctly associated with Ian.

“Thanks,” He smiles, even though he’s trying not to.

He sets his chip basket down across from Ian’s tray, and then takes a seat. The feeling sizzles hot in the pit of his stomach when he realizes that they’re both going out of their way to make sure their knees don’t bump into one another’s beneath the table top. He has to fight the smile back, now.

“Burger,” Ian grunts, re-directing the moment back to something familiar and warm.

*

An hour later, they’ve relocated to a corner table inside the bar.

It’s a typical Friday night for this place, which means that it’s basically packed to capacity at any given time. Sure, it’s a little heavy handed with the west coast aesthetic, but the tribal prints and wood panelled furniture have come to feel like home over the years. And, more importantly, despite the crowds they still managed to snag the last available table for themselves.

There’s a HAIM song playing over the sound system, but it’s so loud in here that Anthony can barely hear it. For some reason Ian has always had supersonic hearing when it came to girl bands, which means that the rowdy bar crowd has not stopped him from singing along tonight. Instead, he’s drunk and clearly entertaining himself as he bounces his shoulders and spins his damp drink coaster around on the table top with one finger.

Anthony is more interested in the candle sitting between them. The wick has almost burned right down to the wax, but he can’t stop playing with the flame, letting his finger drag through the heat until he just can’t stand it anymore.

So far, they’ve finished a rum and coke each. The empty glasses sitting at the edge of the table are the only evidence left of their round.

“Alright,” The waitress greets, as she appears with her drink tray. She sets their fresh doubles down on the table between them, and then reaches back to her tray and sets two shot glasses down, as well. Anthony is just about to ask if she wants to get them drunk or something when she adds, “These are from the girls sitting at the bar.”

At that Ian turns around, drunk enough to longer be chill as he squints across the dim room and tries to see who bought them the drinks.

It’s pretty obvious, Anthony thinks, as he glances in the same direction. There are two young looking girls giggling over themselves at the bar, one waving to them as the other smiles widely. Alright, well. Anthony picks his shot glass up and tips it in their direction as a thank you as Ian turns back to face him and shrugs, reaching for his as well.

“Cheers I guess,” Anthony says, before they clink their shot glasses together and throw them back.

It burns the entire way down. It’s totally fucking gross - Fireball, of all things - and Anthony sticks his tongue out, grimacing as Ian bangs his shot glass back down against the table and wipes a hand over his face. The waitress laughs at them, amused, and clears the empties away.

“I am definitely throwing that up later,” Ian groans, leaning heavily on one elbow against the table top. Without turning back to look at their free shot girls, he half-assedly wiggles his fingers over one shoulder as a thank you, and adds, “No more shots.”

Anthony nods, agreeing vehemently as he reaches for his fresh rum and coke. He sips at it just to clear the sickly cinnamon taste still lingering in his mouth.

“Agreed,” He says readily, shaking his head before he adds, “Fuck that.”

On the other side of the still flickering candle, Ian burps and groans.

“Well. I’m fucking drunk,” He announces, propping himself back against the leather seats of their booth. It makes Anthony laugh, the casual resignedness of Ian’s declaration; the way his eyes are wide and hazy but he’s still smiling, amused. Ian raises his eyebrows when Anthony doesn’t immediately answer, and adds, “We are getting fucking old, man. It’s official. This Fireball is doing some crazy shit with my burger right now.”

Still laughing, Anthony makes a face and then shakes his head, grimacing before he brings his drink back up for another sip.

“You are actually disgusting,” Anthony lies, trying to hide behind his highball glass as Ian smiles and openly watches him do so.

It’s all different, now. Their entire relationship has slowly become an uncontrolled landslide towards _less platonic_ , and moments like these are the perfect example of why. Ian is transparent. Watching him openly, drunkenly, his eyes both bright and curious as he raises his eyebrows and kicks his feet out underneath the table. The toe of his sneaker taps against the bottom arch of Anthony’s foot, a bump through the thick rubber sole.

Anthony feels himself blush a little bit at the contact - thinks _notice me, senpai_ \- and that’s the last moment before everything changes.

“I need to tell you something. You can do whatever you want, but you can’t be mad at me,” Ian says. The crazy part of Anthony’s brain is stuck on how Ian’s foot is still pressed up against the bottom of his underneath the table. Ian taps his fingers against the edge of his glass, and adds, “You can’t make fun of me for this, either.”

At first, it almost sounds like Ian could be joking. In an alternate universe, maybe he is. But in this reality, in the one where they are sitting here, like this, in the same bar that they’ve been to a thousand times before, on a thousand different nights, Ian is serious. The alcohol has taken away the nervousness he couldn’t hide at the food truck; it’s left him sounding strange, lilted. Brutally honest.

“Sure,” Anthony replies. All of a sudden, his throat is as dry as Death Valley in late August. “You can tell me anything.”

Ian licks his lips. He drops his fingers from the glass, and curls them against the table top. He taps his foot against Anthony’s one more time underneath the table, just a beat. He reaches for his drink.

“I wasn’t… totally honest with you earlier,” He finally manages to say, biting out the words before he cuts himself off to take a long sip of his drink.

In the time that it takes Ian to knock his drink straw to the side and swallow two gulps, Anthony’s entire nervous system goes on red alert. His brain goes into overdrive and begins to send absolutely crazy signals out to the rest of his body. _This is not a drill! All systems are go! Ian, Ian, IAN!_ His stomach drops and his hands begin to shake uselessly; the alcohol is now working against him. His chest flushes, and for one second he has a brief moment of terror that he’s about to have a full blown panic attack.

But before anything has a chance to happen - including Ian finishing off the rest of his sentence - Anthony catches movement out of the corner of his eye.

It’s close, someone is standing beside their table, but at first he tries to ignore it. He stares back at Ian, now chewing ice, and waits for him to say something.

“Uh,” Ian says, sounding less sure of himself. He looks to the side, and his face drops.

“Hey guys,” A girl says. She’s one of the two that had sent the shots over earlier - and now here they are, standing beside them like a matching salt and pepper shaker set, one blonde and one brunette. They’re also pretty clearly at the same level of white girl wasted that Ian and Anthony are. They look a little bit disheveled, a little less put together than their Instagram photos probably looked a few hours ago. “We just wanted to come over and make sure that you both enjoyed your shots.”

Anthony’s mouth drops open at that - he’s hazy and still a little flushed with anxiety, and he has no idea what to say. At a loss for words, he stares across the table at Ian helplessly.

“They were really gross,” Ian blurts, filling in the silence with a wide smile. Somehow the flat tone of his voice makes the truth sound like a joke; on him it becomes endearing, cute. Anthony runs a hand through his hair and tries to smile back at the darker haired girl who is clearly grinning directly at him, eyes glassy and lips stained pink. “We appreciate it, though. They were, you know. Get you a little bit more drunk.”

The lighter haired girl laughs and shrugs, and then says, “We were going to the club next door to dance. Do you guys want to join us?”

“Uh,” Anthony starts to say, finally managing to make his own mediocre contribution to the conversation. He stares across the table at the side of Ian’s face, trying to convey the ‘please no, fuck no’ he feels welling up from the pit of his stomach.

Things Anthony wants to do right now: Anthony wants to hear more about where Ian’s sentence was going earlier. Anthony wants to have a few more drinks, just until he is able to freely talk about his feelings. Anthony wants to get drunk enough that all of the scary choices just seem like good decisions tonight, and he wakes up hungover in the same bed as Ian tomorrow morning.

Anthony wants a lot of things right now, but none of them involve going next door to a dance club with two of their drunk fans.

“Sure?” Ian finally answers, clearly reading Anthony’s face wrong.

The two girls squeal and clap, and soon Anthony is trying to down his drink one-handed as they’re both pulled out of their booth by the arm.

*

Their time at the club quickly turns into an absolute blur.

Something happens - the Fireball metabolizes quickly, their earlier shots catch up with them, slamming their doubles was just enough to put them over the edge - whatever it is, they’re both noticeably out of control by the time they get into the club, and out onto the dance floor. Ian buys the entire group another round of drinks, so they immediately end up with even more booze.

Anthony is so wasted that he can’t even tell what kind of alcohol he’s drinking at first.

The girls lead them to the dance floor almost immediately. This club is cautiously alternative; lots of cheap Forever 21 bondage gear, misplaced nineties throwbacks, and loud, rhythm driven music. Some idiotic part in the very back of Anthony’s brain reminds him that Kalel used to love it here, as he’s being lead through the crowd by the hand.

He feels the contents of his drink glass slosh all over the inside curve of one hand as they reach an opening in the crowd, and his girl lifts his arm up to twirl underneath it.

They’re absorbed into the dance floor quickly. Three songs in Anthony begins to sweat, both from the overwhelming temperature of the club, and the amount of alcohol now flowing freely throughout his system. He throws back the rest of what he finally realizes is a vodka soda, and surreptitiously drops his glass onto the floor. It’s almost immediately kicked away, a party foul swallowed up by the bodies around him.

His girl is grinding up against his body now, laughing and reaching for his hands as they dance together.

It’s not bad, to have someone be this close to him again. In fact, some drunk part of his brain is almost thankful for the close human contact. He doesn’t know anything about this girl, she could be anyone, but she’s warm and he’s always been a tactile person. Every now and then, Anthony gets flashes of Ian in the crowd.

Ian doesn’t seem focused on anything in particular, just glassy and drunk as he holds his girl by the waist, and stares up into the ceiling lights every time she grinds low on his dick. The girls are clearly pros at sticking together in a crowd, because soon they’re all in the middle of the floor, and Anthony turns around to realize that the girls are both screaming and laughing, arms wrapped around one another as they half jump and half dance in a circle.

Blearily, Anthony looks at Ian standing on the other side of them - vacant, wasted, maybe more drunk than Anthony. He keeps running a hand through his hair, but it’s so sweaty it just sticks up awkwardly, half fluffy and half wet with sweat.

He doesn’t mean for it to happen, but all of a sudden Anthony is thinking about his fingers in Ian’s hair. Sweaty, like it is now, but with Anthony’s fingers knotted in the hair at the nape of his neck, or the crown of his head. Pulling and tugging it as Ian groans and sinks into the mattress beneath him. Anthony would ride him hard, use his hair to pull his head back and bite at the skin where his jaw meets his throat.

Ian would love it.

“We’re going to the bathroom,” One of the girls yells, interrupting Anthony’s drunken fantasy. She loudly enunciates BATHROOM over the wub of the music; it’s obnoxious but it gets the point across, so Anthony waves them off, awkwardly shifting spots as they join hands again and begin to make their way back through the crowd.

The music changes to a slightly trance-y version of an old Iggy Pop song.

Left alone, everything begins to change. It’s almost instant; that one sliver of time where they are the only people who exist. Ian stops touching his own hair, and reaches for Anthony instead. It’s all so insidious, it’s almost dreamlike.

He’s watching Ian watch him one moment, and then the next Ian is reaching forward, and wrapping his fingers around Anthony’s wrist to tug him closer. Anthony goes, moves until his shoulder almost touches Ian’s chest. Ian’s mouth is so near Anthony’s ear that he can feel Ian breathing. He doesn’t see this, but Ian closes his eyes, thumb resting steady on the erratically beating pulse beneath the thinnest skin of Anthony’s wrist.

“I’ve always wanted you,” Ian admits, knowing that it will be a struggle for Anthony to hear him over the bass. “That’s what it all comes down to. Everything.”

Suddenly the entire room fades to nothing more than background noise.

“What?!” Anthony manages to say. He is a thousand degrees all over. He feels like he’s drowning, swimming in a deep sea of hot bathtub water. Ian’s watching him evenly: he knows Anthony understands what he said. His thumb slides from Anthony’s wrist and down to the middle of his palm, pressing into the soft flesh there until Anthony clicks back to life, and tightens his hand into a fist around Ian’s finger. Ian presses his body more firmly against Anthony’s, and lets his free hand touch Anthony’s back. All that Anthony can manage to say is, “Ian.”

Just saying his name out loud, like that, when they are pressed together like this, opens every door they ever knowingly locked. The precarious check and balance system they have had forever falls to pieces, nuts and bolts tumbling to the floor and bouncing recklessly around their feet.

They’re almost nose to nose, and Anthony is suddenly rock fucking hard. This is his body finally getting what it wants.

Ian moves his hands up Anthony’s ribs, his touch light despite the crowd pushing them together from all sides. Anyone could see them together like this, just like this. They’re in a congregation of drunk young people, and any one of them could easily take their photo or tweet their location - it would be the easiest, most surreptitious moment to capture forever. This feeling that Anthony has inside him, it’s the strangest thing. Standing there, with one hand on the inside of Ian’s elbow and the other hanging uselessly at his side, Anthony realizes he doesn’t care.

Maybe it’s the booze, or maybe it’s just the feeling of being complete - that delirious moment that he realizes he’s finally gotten what he wants. He doesn’t care if they get caught. 

It’s an intoxicating feeling, uncharted and extreme as he stands there in this new world where everything has melted away except for Ian.

“I’m going to,” Ian starts to say, but then he reaches for Anthony’s face and they’re kissing.

Anthony lets himself be poured into the moment. He stands still, and takes the kiss from Ian until someone bumps into him behind, and something clicks. Something clicks into place in his heart or his chest or maybe both, and he springs to life for the very first time. It’s like seeing The Wizard of Oz in color after only watching the first ten minutes on repeat for your entire life. Anthony fits here: his mouth fits, and his body fits, and he realizes that his hands fit, too, as he moves them up to Ian’s shoulders.

Ian is holding Anthony’s chin as they kiss, thumb pressed firmly into his jaw as they drunkenly lick one another's mouths. Ian’s face is hot, flushed and sweaty, his mouth tasting like booze. On anyone else, it would be disgusting. On Ian, it is perfection.

It’s a thousand years spent as best friends shattering in front of them, as easy as breaking a mirror. It’s totally fucking worth the risk of getting hurt.

*

Despite himself, Anthony feels like an asshole for abandoning the girls.

They seemed nice, and probably deserved more than the two of them sneaking away like that before last call. But, as it stands, all that Anthony can really wrap his head around is wrapping himself around Ian, and that isn’t really a scenario that two girls fit into.

Luckily nobody else seems to give them a second look as they make their way back through the dance floor, Anthony’s fist twisted into the back of Ian’s t-shirt to keep them from getting separated in the crowd. Wasted twenty somethings aren’t exactly their demographic, so Anthony isn’t worried about getting recognized as he leans forward and snakes his free hand around until he can grab onto Ian’s. He’s still drunk, deliciously so, and it makes it not so scary to want to hold onto Ian’s hand.

Ian doesn’t look back at him, but he does squeeze Anthony’s hand a few times, thumb tracing back and forth over his knuckles.

They reach the edge of the floor and start making their way back through the maze of the club. There’s the first bar where Ian had bought them all a round, the lounge room which seems like a glorified sex dungeon, and then finally the second bar area and exit.

Even with less than optimally firing senses, Anthony can feel that something has completely changed between them. The air is fizzling like static electricity, and his stomach feels like someone has flipped the zero gravity chamber on - in fact, he’s almost sure he can feel his heart beating in his throat. Ian is, for lack of better descriptor, possessive with him. The way Ian is holding himself has gone from “just two guys hanging out and having a great time” to “this is my territory”, and it’s getting Anthony all fired up with all kinds of explicit thoughts.

Ian had always been that way with Mel, Anthony remembered that part of their relationship vividly. Whenever they were out as a group, Anthony would maybe give Kalel a kiss or two, or swing her hand back and forth as they walked - but with Ian, it had been constant. He’d always had an arm around Mel’s shoulders, or she’d hold his hand in her lap if they were sitting down. Their legs twisted together, a tug at the back of her jeans, pulling her down until she sat in his lap.

In the dark of the club hallway, Anthony licks his lips. The memories that include Mel are already fuzzy; he finds himself inserting his own body into these types of memories. His fingers in Ian’s belt loops, Ian’s head in his lap, biting skin just until it left a mark.

They’re still following one another towards the front doors when Ian stops short, leaving Anthony to stumble into his back.

Before Anthony can ask what the fuck is going on, Ian pulls them both to the side of the hallway, away from the main traffic area. He uses their joined hands as an anchor to push Anthony against the wall, and then lets go to lean in. Anthony swallows thickly and grins, letting his head drop back with a thump against the black painted, surprisingly thin wall. He can still feel the bass beat thumping through the cheap particle board.

Ian returns the grin, eyes bright even in the dim light of the hallway corridor, and kisses him again.

He runs his hands down Anthony’s sides and then grabs him by the hips, pulling him forward before he pushes him backwards, into the wall. It’s jolting and fun, to be pushed and pulled like that. Anthony doesn’t let Ian break their kiss, he just moves his own body as Ian shifts his weight, finally laughing against Anthony’s mouth when Anthony doesn’t break. Ian is hot as fuck when he’s drunk and confident, Anthony thinks, twisting his fingers up into the front of Ian’s shirt.

Anthony’s knuckle brushes the skin of Ian’s stomach, and it makes him want more. He lets go of Ian’s shirt and slides his hand underneath instead, letting his palm coast up and down, around the warm, soft part of Ian’s side and the bone of his hip. Ian is still kissing him wolfishly, sliding his tongue into Anthony’s mouth and then back out - biting at his lips, his tongue.

“Ugh,” Ian says after a moment, regaining his composure long enough to pull back an inch from Anthony’s mouth. He half smiles and reaches up to push some of the sticky hair off of Anthony’s forehead before he says, “I just needed to do that all of a sudden.”

Anthony breaks into a grin. He can’t help it, knows that his face is probably bright red and patchy, less than cool - but this - this is all worth it.

He bites at his bottom lip and nods, one hand still tracing up Ian’s side as they stand there for a moment, trying to pull themselves together. It doesn’t really help. All that Anthony can think about is finding out if Ian’s nipple fetish is real. That combined with the fact that Ian already looks totally fucked out doesn’t help with controlling his boner in the slightest.

“Let’s go,” Anthony says finally, simply. He reaches forward to wrap one arm around Ian’s shoulders, and pull him into a hug. Ian goes effortlessly, crumbles against Anthony with his face pressed against the side of Anthony’s neck.

They stand there for a moment, growing roots in this dingy, dark club hallway of all the places in the world.

*

In the Uber back to Anthony’s loft, they mostly keep their hands to themselves.

It’s strange, to watch the city roll past the window, knowing what Anthony knows now. How it feels to kiss Ian, to touch Ian’s bare skin and his stomach and his hands. It’s information that he didn’t have before; last time they were moving like this the sun was setting, not rising, and Anthony had no idea that Ian liked to bite skin.

He looks across the seat, and Ian looks back nervously. This is the hard part, the part where the booze is leaving their systems, where want and infatuation can no longer be blamed on things like tequila and free shots of Fireball. Anthony’s cock is still just as interested in the proceedings as it had been on the ride there, when he had been daydreaming about licking Ian’s stomach and getting fucked good.

Ian leans over, until he’s sliding back against the leather of the bench seat and his ear is bumping softly against Anthony’s shoulder.

This is the weird part, Anthony thinks. He glances down nervously. The casual intimacy, the implied permission now shared between them.

He can’t leave Ian hanging, not when he’s made the first offering that didn’t go down on a dance floor or in a back hallway. So Anthony lets his hand creep across the seat, too, fingers crawling until they bump into Ian’s hand that had been laying against the leather. Anthony loops his own fingers around Ian’s, and lets them rest there on the seat, together.

Honestly, he has no idea how this will complicate their relationship, their business. But for now, like this - knowing what he knows now - Anthony doesn’t care what they’ll have to do to make it work. He can’t go back to just being Ian’s friend after knowing what it feels like to be pushed and pulled, kissed and grabbed.

And you know what? The only way to move without going backwards, is to walk forward instead.


End file.
